Hell on Earth
by Awesome.German
Summary: My name is Staff Sergeant Robert Deal. My story begins with the Battle of Cherbourg.
1. Cherbourg

Huffing and puffing, I ran down the dirt road. Bullets were kicking up dirt at my feet, snapping the tree branches around me. I slid easily into the ditch near the end of the road, pulled my rifle up to my shoulder and took aim. The stolen sniper rifle kicked into my shoulder, and the German who was about five hundred yards away slid into the tank hatch easily. His brains flew out all over the tank hatch, making a strange array of shapes. I slid the bolt back easily; the shell flew about three feet. Right about now I guessed that the last remaining man in the tank was loading a round into the main gun. There were two hedgerows on either side of me, and there was a river behind me. That river was my last chance. I did a backwards somersault into the river, leaving my rifle where it was. At that split second, the tank fired. The round went right over my head into the tank that was on the opposite side of the river. The Sherman exploded, sending shrapnel in my direction. I felt a horrible pain in my upper leg. The next thing I knew, I was soaking wet, it was night time, and I was on a stretcher being worked on by a medic. 

Maybe I should start at the beginning. My name is Staff Sergeant Robert Deal. I am an infantryman in the U.S. Army. My story begins with the Battle of Cherbourg. The company commander sent my squad out to rescue another squad caught behind enemy lines. We brought two medics with us in case of casualties.

The repeated recoil of my sub-machine gun slammed into my shoulder, and the German I was aiming at fell, full of holes. Bullets whizzed past my ears as I ran past a set of medics, carrying a stretcher with a wounded man on it. The man was missing his left arm and left leg. I heard a ding, and when I looked back, the medic carrying the back side had just taken a bullet in the head. I tripped as I saw this and fell into a foxhole. I peeked over the hole at the German MG-42. It was focused on my squad, which was on the other side of the road, about fifty yards back.

_How the hell'd I get so far ahead of them?_ I wondered. _No matter, I'll just have to take care of that MG before I can get them over to me._ I waited until the MG had to reload and then sprinted to the next foxhole. I repeated this. The next time that the gun had to reload, the barrel had overheated. They opened the side of the perforated barrel to change out; I crouch-sprinted to the shell hole closest to them. By the time I had gotten there, I was in grenade range. I heard someone yell something in German, and a grenade hit my helmet. I knew I was dead, but I might as well just try to get away. I ran toward the MG-42's flank, and since the grenade was a high explosive grenade, I still felt the shock and was plunged forward behind the sandbags. The Germans there spotted me and scrambled for their rifles. In my awkward position on the ground, I managed to get my gun pointing at one of them. I pulled the trigger. The first German fell; his arm was literally in pieces, and he had a huge hole in his head. One of the rounds slammed through his arm and skimmed the second German, also in the arm. I scrambled up as fast as I could and pointed my gun at him. This man raised his one usable arm and started rambling out words I didn't understand. I had heard many German voices from propaganda films and the sort, but this man wasn't speaking German. My squad came up to the MG and had their guns on him in a split second. "Parker! Come here!" I ordered. A skinny man about the age of 24 came up, his M-1 lazily slung around his shoulder, and his .45 pointed at the POW. "You know languages. What's this guy speaking?" I asked. Parker listened to him talk and thought for a minute. He gave me a puzzled look.

"Sarge, this doesn't make sense. . . . He's speaking Russian!" Parker said. I was surprised. Parker asked him a few questions. "He says that the Germans took him and put him into a mixed battalion of troops with a few officers to watch after them and make sure they know the rules." Parker pointed his pistol at a dead man wearing an officer's cap a few feet away, out of sight of the Russian.

"Ask him why the hell they shot our medic," I ordered. Parker asked the man.

"He said, 'He's an enemy, and my commander didn't tell us not to,'" Parker replied.

"Tell him that it's against the rules, and his commander's dead," Parker told him. The Russian looked surprised. He sputtered a few more things out.

"He didn't know his commander was dead. Well, Sarge, what should we do with him?"

"Hmm. . . . There could be more non-Germans in the area, so Parker, you stay with the squad. Taylor, you take this man back to a medic, get him patched up quickly, and then take him to regiment for interrogation." Another man stepped forward. He flicked his cigarette away, grabbed the prisoner and started back for regiment. "Taylor!" I called out. He looked back at me for a minute. His eyes were filled with hatred, for his best friend had been killed by that machine gun emplacement and had to be replaced. By me. "If he doesn't make it back alive, it's gonna be your ass," I finished. Taylor nodded and walked back to the nearest medic, his Springfield '03 cocked and pointed at the prisoner's forehead the whole time. "Well," I sighed, "let's keep moving." I reloaded my Thompson and ran down the road with my squad.

"Cover!" I yelled as a shell went over my head and the heads of my men. I managed to make it into a house on the side of the road with Parker, but the remains of my squad were stuck in shell holes in the road. "Parker, we've got to find a way to flank that tank!" I said as I peeked around the corner at the humongous Tiger tank blocking the road.

"Sarge, this isn't our mission! Why do we have to take on the tank?" Parker complained. I looked at him strangely. I then pointed down the road where the shell had hit. There was now a collapsed building blocking our path.

"Because if we tried to make it past that building, we'd be sitting ducks for that Tiger! Plus our squad's stuck in a hole in the middle of the road, and we can't reach 'em." I yelled back at him. "Got any grenades?" I asked. Parker nodded and handed me two pineapple grenades. "All right. . . ." I looked around for a minute and spotted some stairs. "Wait here," I ordered. I climbed up to the third floor of the building. I saw a big piece of concrete that had collapsed from the roof. I looked around some more and then went down to get Parker. He was busy shooting at the infantry accompanying the Tiger. "Knock it off, we've got work to do." I said. We went back up to the third floor and worked together to get the piece of concrete out a window and to another building. We made a bridge of some sort. "I'll go first, you follow once I see if it's safe." I slowly walked across the piece into the next building. Once I made it, Parker started across. He made it, and we dragged the piece of concrete into our building as to not alert the Germans of our position. I ran to a window and I could see the Tiger in the same spot, shooting his machine gun at our men. There was nothing in sight besides the Tiger and the infantry.

"Sarge!" Parker yelled. "I found some stairs!" I followed him and we successfully sneaked up on the Tiger. There was no firing anymore; the five or so infantry were trying to get closer to my squad quietly. I told Parker to get one of the Germans in his sights and wait for my signal. I quietly climbed on top of the tank an got behind the MG-42 on it. I was sitting on the hatch, so I didn't think they'd open it up.

"Now!" I yelled. The MG-42 started sawing through the infantry. Once I had killed most of them, I aimed at the last one just to see Parker shoot him through the eye. It was about this time that the hatch started pushing up on me. My squad stood up and started cheering. "Get down, you idiots!" I ordered as the internal machine-gun started rattling. Most of the squad ducked, but one man by the name of Richard Nelson got filled with lead. The machine gun stopped and a huge amount of force was exerted that pushed me off the tank hatch. A shot rang out the split second the German raised his head up near the tank hatch; blood, brains, and bone were all splattered all over the tank hatch opening. I pulled the pin on one of my grenades and threw it down the hatch; it exploded and I heard the cries of the tank crew. I got off the back of the tank and put another grenade down the fuel catch on the back of the tank. "Parker, now's the time to run like hell!" We took off. The explosion of the grenade then set the tank on fire. My squad started cheering. Parker chuckled. "What's so funny?" I asked.

"Oh it's nothing, Sarge. I just haven't run that fast since my girl saw me with her best friend." I laughed a bit at that too. I heard a rifle cock and I turned. Sure enough, there was Taylor with his scoped Springfield. The shell fell on the ground next to me. I heard him speak for the first time.

"You're welcome." He said angrily. He walked off to the building blocking our path. We followed. That night, I was put in for a bronze star by someone. I wasn't sure who, though. Rumors were spread about who did it, and fingers were pointed at a lot of people in my platoon. The most popular rumor was that Taylor put it in . . . Nah, he hates me.


	2. The Tower and Turning Point

A click filled the crisp morning air around me and my men. That click was my Thompson letting me know it's loaded. I looked at the faces of my squad; some were scared, some were angry, and some were indescribable. I then uttered two words that no infantryman ever wanted to hear.

"Fix bayonets." More clicks were heard, these were the clicks of the bayonets sliding easily into place on the front of a few M-1s. "Roy, you got him?" I asked one of our replacement medics.

"Yeah, Sarge," Roy replied coolly. "He's in bad shape though. McNeal might not survive." I thought for a minute, just above this dike, just about three hundred yards down the road, was a machine gun outpost we ran into. It was cleverly camouflaged; it had seen us coming down the road for the last mile. It waited until we had gotten within easy hitting range and opened up. We were on a two-mile long stretch of road surrounded on both sides by twenty foot tall hedgerows. We reached a series of drainage ditches which continued in twenty-yard increments all the way to the machine gun. I was skeptical of advancing with my whole squad, so I sent one of our replacements, McNeal, out in the open to check for mines in the ditches ahead. He barely got up past the ditch when the MG-42 opened fire on him. They hit him in the lower right stomach, but the bullet went clean through, luckily. He was still bleeding badly.

"Well they've got to be replacements; they wouldn't have opened fire yet if they weren't. Fix him up as well as you can Roy, we'll be back." I said. I gave a hand signal to one of my men. He pulled the pin off a smoke grenade and threw it as far as he could. I had chosen him to be the carrier of our smoke grenades because in civilian life he had been a great high school football player. He threw the grenade at a great arch and it landed about 75 yards ahead. I gave him thumbs up and returned to watching the smoke grenade. It filled the whole road after about thirty seconds. "Taylor, You hit the machine gun and cover us, alright?" I ordered our platoon sniper. He looked down his scope in the direction of the machine gun. He had hidden in the bushes and hadn't warned of us of the gun because his scope fell off. Score one for military ruggedness. "Go!" I yelled. My whole squad and I ran forward. The bad thing was that we left the ditch too late. The smoke started to disappear even though we were only halfway there. A sound of something like a piece of canvas ripping echoed throughout the Norman countryside. That was something we hated about the German guns; they had such a high rate of fire we couldn't even hope to match it. One of our guys clutched his side and let out a shriek of pain mixed with terror. He had been shot in the leg, not a bad wound. Well, it wouldn't have been a bad wound if the bullet hadn't torn the main artery in his leg. "Get down, get down!" I screamed. We all jumped in the ditch, the smoke was gone and we had very little cover. I poked my head up; a shot rang through the silence.

Taylor undid the bolt on his rifle and looked down his scope again. The assistant gunner looked on in terror; his buddy's head had just exploded for Pete's sake. He controlled his breathing and shot again. A stream of blood squirted out of the second German's throat as a .30-06 round lodged itself in there.

I was relieved when the gun didn't fire again. Thank god for Taylor.

"Hold here, I'm going to go check out the gun." I ordered. I did a quick sprint for about a hundred yards, but then got more cautious. I raised my Thompson to my shoulder as I approached. I sprayed the whole area with .45 ACP rounds and continued. "Roy! Get a stretcher and get up here!" I ordered. "As for the rest of my squad, form up on me! We're not done with our mission yet!" Once they had gathered around me (Taylor included), I began explaining the rest of the mission. "We made it this far men, we're almost there. That," I pointed to a church tower a few hundred yards off, "is our next objective! We have orders to take that tower, take out the AA gun, and hold our position until the rest of the company gets here. Too many men gathered in one area will attract attention, so they chose a squad, and it happened to be us. First we have to take out the guns at Pointe Du Hoc ourselves and now this? We're the luckiest Ranger squad in the whole army, eh?" The men chuckled at that. "Alright, we're going to move in through this hedgerow and take it out from behind. Parker, you check these Germans for intelligence and get the charges. The rest of you load up; this won't be easy." A chorus of 'Yes, sirs' came from my men. Parker walked over and signature flicked his cigarette away as he began to search the men.

"Parker, get the charges and blow this baby off it's hinges!" I whispered. He set the charge and we all retreated to a safe distance. "Fire in the hole!" I yelled. The charge exploded, sending shrapnel in all directions. "Go, go, go!" I ordered. We rushed in there and let loose a few shots at the guards before we continued upstairs. When we reached the top, we were surprised to find the Germans there gone.

"Sir, I found something!" Parker yelled. "It's a note from the other German soldiers…"

"Well, what are you waiting for? Read it aloud!" Parker nodded and began reading.

"110 mechanized infantry unit 6/8/44  
Major Wilhelm, we have just received orders to move onto the next town, so we left a few men here from our unit to tell you. In case they laze off, this note is here. Please forgive us for not telling you before you got back from leave, you were due back today, and the orders were just implemented a few minutes ago. Please radio into HQ for the rest of the information.  
-Private Hans."

"The eighth of June…That's today…" I realized. "Parker! Go check the bodies for the Major! Taylor, you watch the town and take out any high value targets. Everyone else assume the Major hasn't come yet and get ready to capture him. He probably won't be alone, so do not slack off. Go!" I ordered.

_Clip-clonk, clip-clonk, clip-clonk! _went a horse's hooves as it approached the tower. I gave the hand signal to get ready. We had propped up the men we had killed earlier in chairs with a deck of cards laid out in front of them. The Major came in with two guys who each had an MP40.

"Open fire!" I yelled, M1911 pistol and trench knife at the ready. Three rifles barked and I ran out towards the Major. His two escorts fell, but they had pulled the triggers on their way down. A bullet skimmed my arm, but I managed to keep running. I grabbed the Major, swung him around, put my pistol to his head, and my knife to his throat. After removing all of his weapons, I decided it was safe to let him "Parker, come talk to this guy." I ordered. I Parker grabbed some rope and tied the Major to a chair. I went back upstairs. "Got anyone yet, Taylor?" I asked. His eyes shifted slowly over to me.

"No." He aimed back down his telescopic sight. I made a face at him and went back downstairs. Not much later, as Roy was helping clean my wound, we heard two rifle shots from upstairs.

"Taylor must have found two of 'em." I said. "How would you guys like it if we stayed here tonight instead of heading back once our company gets here?" I ashed my men. They all jumped around like little boys at a birthday party. "I assume that's a yes." I said to myself and grabbed a cigarette from my pouch.

We woke up the next morning well rested and full of food kept at the church. We decided to go back to base camp and reload on ammunition before heading out for our next objective.

"Taylor! You stay here and...do whatever you snipers do. The rest of us are going back to camp for ammo!" I yelled at him. Silence was the reply. "I don't really understand why he hates me so." I said as we left.

As we were heading back, we ran into that machine gun again. It cut down most of my men because we were off guard. Parker managed to take it out with a well placed rifle shot though. The only men left were Me, Rifleman Parker, and Medic Roy.

"What the hell was that?! We took out that damn gun! Why the hell didn't Taylor shoot those goddamn krauts?!" I screamed in anger. "I'll have his ass for this!" I yelled, beginning to run back to the tower.

We got there and I ran upstairs to yell at Taylor.

"Why the hell didn't y-" I stopped immediately as soon as I saw Taylor. He was completely pale, and had a huge hole in his eye. His hand was resting on a half-open bolt. I heard a yell from downstairs. I grabbed Taylor's sniper rifle, one of his dog tags, and ran downstairs. "What is it?" I asked when I got down.

"We've got what looks like two platoons of men heading straight for us." Parker responded.

"How far away are they?" I asked. The church tower was perched on a hill overlooking no mans land and a French town, so we had a great position..

"It looks like...a good thousand yards, but they're still heading for us...Say sarge, what happened to Taylor?"

"Eh, shot in the head. Enemy sniper. I wouldn't reccomend going up there unless you want to be laying next to him." I replied. Parker was as shocked as I was that we'd lost Taylor. But we didn't have any time to mourn, or we'd be in serious trouble. I thought for a minute about our situation. "Alright, drop any unneeded material; we've got to run if we're gonna live." I looked directly at Parker when I said this next part. "That means loot too." Parker got mad, but did as I said. Roy didn't have any excess material, so once I dropped my Thompson I was ready to go.

We slammed open the door to the church and ran toward the MG-42 in order to get away from the advancing infantry. We were running for no less than ten seconds when they opened fire on us, as they had gotten considerably closer. Then I heard two '_ping!'_s. I turned my head and saw both Parker and Roy begin to fall.


End file.
